Hollywood Debates Whether Jay Penske Will Polish Up Variety Or Tarnish The Brand

Hollywood offered its advice to new Variety owner Jay Penske on Tuesday, expressing hope that fresh leadership and new capital will return some of the celestial sparkle to what used to be the bible of the entertainment industry.

But not everybody was optimistic.

"I think it's a tremendous name, and I would hate to see it disappear," said Leo Wolinsky, former editor of Daily Variety. "They need to become more hard-hitting and be more aggressive online. The editorial leadership was resistant to change and was satisfied with what had become more of a bulletin board of industry press releases and happenings."

Others worried that the bark-and-snark culture of Deadline Hollywood, which Penske also owns, would invade Variety, rather than the other way around.

“Ultimately I'm hoping that Deadline becomes a little more of what Variety is and does not just take over Variety's subscriber base," said Gavin Polone, a film and television producer who recently called for readers to boycott Deadline Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke on New Yorkmagazine's Vulture site.

"I hope they do more legitimate journalism, which Deadline doesn't do," he told TheWrap. "Everything there is extremely superficial or filled with [Finke's] opinion, and journalism has to do with facts. If it becomes a lot of 'Toldja,' that's pathetic."

Even as an initial wave of optimism swirled among Variety well-wishers and staffers, there was also a belief by many that Penske has purchased a deeply troubled asset, one with a marginal online presence and rapidly declining advertising revenue.

"It's going to be complicated and take a lot of imagination to figure out how to make Variety feel relevant," said Patrick Goldstein, the former Big Picture columnist for The Los Angeles Times. "It's a wonderful old-fashioned brand, but it's sort of like film in a digital age. They've got to figure out a way to modernize it and reinvent it."

In particular, Goldstein thinks the first thing Penske Media should do is tear down Variety's paywall, which has dulled the impact of their casting scoops and caused its traffic to nosedive to fewer than half a million monthly unique visitors. (Others noted that doing so would put it in the same horserace as other online sites, including TheWrap and Deadline, while sapping millions in subscription dollars.)

And many said that it may be too late to return Variety to its central place in the Hollywood trade firmament.

"It’s one of the industry’s favorite stories, David swallowed Goliath," said Howard Suber, a film professor at UCLA. "Who would have thought this little newsletter that started during the Writer's Strike would grow into this big powerful company? But Variety is no longer Goliath thanks to TheWrap and Nikki Finke.

"The monopoly on information is no longer there, and the amount of information that people are dying to know is either less than it used to be or is available for free elsewhere," he added.